Kent Bush: GOP left to draw lines in the sand

Kent Bush

Friday

Jun 29, 2012 at 12:01 AMJun 29, 2012 at 8:01 AM

That’s really not true because about 99 percent of what they do is refereeing mundane rules that interest very few people who aren’t directly involved in the arguments. But occasionally –– like this week with the national health care debate –– the Supreme Court becomes the focal point of the political world.

The Supreme Court never fails to entertain.

That’s really not true because about 99 percent of what they do is refereeing mundane rules that interest very few people who aren’t directly involved in the arguments. But occasionally –– like this week with the national health care debate –– the Supreme Court becomes the focal point of the political world.

With the announcement of when they were going to announce their ruling, the nine robed sages gave politicians and pundits far too much lead-time. It has become impossible to report effectively. Reporting is best when the responses are legitimate. Over-produced quotes sound canned and fail to encapsulate the enormity of the experience or exactly embody the emotion of the event.

Politicians and news analysts have all prepared reactions for every possible outcome in the ruling.
Most radio talk shows had already spent hours examining what the possible outcomes are, which results would be acceptable and which mean the justices are anti-American agents working with President Barack Obama to bring down our country from the inside.

Ben Smith from Buzzfeed.com tweeted about his contempt for the process of reporting about Thursday’s ruling.

“How do you cover a story in which every pol & every news org already has a series of canned responses ready?” he asked.

Of course, he got all of the responses one would expect from the Twitterverse, the most caustic environment on the Internet. But some tried to help answer the question.

One person suggested interviewing “hobos.” Another said “with limericks.” One person told him to “cover the facts and go home.” Another told him to “talk to real people.”

Sadly, limericks were the best idea of the bunch. “Real People” in this case have no idea what the bill was, what the challenge was all about or why it even matters. Talking to real people or even hobos would do little good because most haven’t read the constitution since sixth grade.

That’s why the pundits try so hard to spin the argument in such simple terms. Scorecards show whom “won” and “lost” on each point of the ruling. Covering the facts on this case and moving on would probably be the best way to have your coverage ignored by almost everyone.

Republicans see the removal of Congress’ ability to penalize states for not participating as a victory for Mitt Romney. They also claim the court upholding the individual mandate will energize Republicans for the 2012 elections to levels similar to the 2010 elections.

Democrats see this as a huge win for President Barack Obama as his landmark legislation is upheld as constitutional.

Obama is obviously helped in his re-election efforts by the fact that his opponent was a huge proponent of exactly this type of bill when he was the governor of Massachusetts. That makes it very difficult for Republicans to argue that there would be any major difference between their challenger and the incumbent on the issue of health care.

Part of the problem is the Supreme Court used to operate as more of a referee. At times, their rulings have been politically motivated, but typically that wasn’t the case.

Current selection models make the Supreme Court justices part of presidential debates. The 24-hour news cycle has even cast its larger magnifying glass and brighter spotlight on the bench.

Now cases can usually be predicted accurately because of partisan leanings more than legal reality or necessity. However, that predictability broke down on this case. Every prediction was that the debate would come down to Justice Anthony Kennedy, who has become the swing vote on a court that features conservatives Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts, as well as more liberal justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Stephen Breyer.

But Kennedy sided with the conservative side of the bench in the health care debate, and Roberts shocked many right-ring pundits by joining the liberal justices and writing the opinion upholding national health care.

According to Congressman Eric Cantor, he has already scheduled a repeal vote for July 11. Romney spoke about the need to repeal and replace the national health care law.

Speaker of the House John Boehner promised Rush Limbaugh there were no plans to replace the measure –– but that sycophancy was before the ruling came down, when everyone assumed the court would rule the bill unconstitutional.

Now the GOP legislators are left to draw more lines in the sand and grand stand this issue as hard as ever to try to move voters in enough swing states to push Obama out of office.

But the fact that Romney has made the argument for the individual mandate himself should make the debates on the issue very interesting as he tries to parse his language to separate his policies from the one the Supreme Court upheld this week.

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